Prior tO 1640, When the Regular Slave Trade to New Spain ended, colonial Mexico was the second largest importer of slaves in the Americas. Even so, slavery never supplanted indigenous labor in the colony, and by the second half of the seventeenth century there were more free Afromexicans than slaves in Mexico. While it seems logical to assume that these unique demographic conditions created a situation ripe for slaves to challenge their oppression, Proctor's study reexamines that assumption.<BR><BR>"Damned Notions of Liberty" explores the lived experience of slavery from the perspective of slaves themselves to reveal how the enslaved may have conceptualized and contested their subordinated social positions in New Spain's middle colonial period (roughly 1630-1760s). Relying heavily on the records of trials from civil, ecclesiastical, and Inquisitorial courts, the study offers a detailed examination of some of the central issues to the culture of slavery---labor, family, cultural community, individual and collective agency, and access to liberation. Addressing such intriguing subjects as slave marriage, curanderismo, violence, and resistance, Proctor provides a newly complete picture of slavery in colonial Mexico.